Decided to not go see Intronaut. "Why?" you may ask. So I could experience a night of good times and true fucking metal, that's why.

Began the day with doing house chores with my dad. Epoxying the garage floor is METAL \m/. I then took off for Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland expecting the night to go south, for you see Eli's is a bar, and I am but a wee lad at the age of 20. I met up with my new pals in Midnight Chaser, and we loaded their gear in. I then just kind of hung around and no one gave me any trouble. And thus, I successfully snuck into a bar for the first time!

Chaser was up first, and kicked a ton of butt as I knew they would. Badass NWOBHM riffs with a beefy, modern guitar tone. It doesn't get more awesome than that.

Met up and chatted with a few friends around this time. I heard a lot of "how the fuck did you get in?" throughout the night haha. Next was Spellcaster, a newish power/thrash band from Portland, OR. They tore shit up. Really thrashy, but with hella melodic vocals. Can't wait to see them again.

Last up was Feg. I had just been talking with them a week or so ago about how bummed I was that I wasn't going to be able to attend this show because it was at a bar, so you can imagine their surprise at seeing me there. Drummer Harry was a delight to chat with as always, the guy knows his metal like no other. Bassist Adrian was in such cheery spirits as is his wont, and even gave me shit for buying a Feg CD at the merch booth when he would have given me one for free! The guys played a fantastic 70 minute set, tons of laughs, great riffs, badass solos and an all around good time. Mike Scalzi can take any stage in the world and make it his playground. Scalzi is the only man who can spend five minutes setting up a joke, having the punch-line be a horrible pun ("I left my harp in San Francisco!"), and still be captivating as fuck. Also got to see a couple of the new songs played live- it was cool to hear them with vocals since I've only heard their instrumental studio versions so far. Also Death Machine fucks all the couches.

Said my goodbyes to everyone, gave our local true metal drunkman a lift home and then drove back. A great night by any measure! Now I can officially say I've attended my first 21+ show. As a minor. Fuck and yeah.

I applaud your choice and envy your ability to see a Slough Feg show. As far as I am aware, they've never played the east coast (or at least not in the past decade). If another one of those Alehorn shows in the mid-west goes off, I might make a serious effort to get there.

I applaud your choice and envy your ability to see a Slough Feg show. As far as I am aware, they've never played the east coast (or at least not in the past decade). If another one of those Alehorn shows in the mid-west goes off, I might make a serious effort to get there.

I could have sworn they've done some east coast shows before, but those were probably years and years ago. Mike told me that they often get really awful turnouts when they play outside of home, so I can see why they'd be reluctant to make the trek out. Not to mention all the guys have day jobs to worry about.

Yeah, I'm a lucky dude to get Slough Feg shows a few times a year but I probably won't be able to see most of them until I'm 21 haha. I got lucky this time, I don't expect for me to be able to get in to another show of theirs for a while. A Feg show is a great time though, and when they do play away from home to a good crowd they play epic sets.